


I will never know how you see red and you will never know how I see it

by gopuckurself



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Courfeyrac/Jean Prouvaire, Fluff, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:28:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24472801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gopuckurself/pseuds/gopuckurself
Summary: Some people see their colors  instantaneously, the moment they touch their soulmate’s hand to shake exploding in bright blinding bursts all at once. Others never seen any colors at all. Most people, though, their colors fade in over time, slowly, bit by bit. They say it means something, the order of your colors, like you can learn something about your soulmate’s fundamental character whether you see the color red or blue first.Grantaire thinks that’s a load of horseshit.But then, he may well be one of those few that never see any color at all.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 223





	I will never know how you see red and you will never know how I see it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/gifts).



> title taken from Anne Carson's _Autobiography of Red_ because it was fitting
> 
> a gift for ThePiecesOfCait, and because we could all use some unapologetic fluff now and then

**RED**

The first piece in the series is a monochrome portrait of a young man from the shoulders up. He is looking down and smiling, as if caught laughing and trying to hide it. His curls are caught in a halo of white that fades to gray and then finally black. His part man, part angel.  


* * *

  
Some people see their colors instantaneously, the moment they touch their soulmate’s hand to shake exploding in bright blinding bursts all at once. Others never seen any colors at all. Most people, though, their colors fade in over time, slowly, bit by bit. They say it means something, the order of your colors, like you can learn something about your soulmate’s fundamental character whether you see the color red or blue first. 

Grantaire thinks that’s a load of horseshit.

But then, he may well be one of those few that never see any color at all.  


* * *

  
It starts like this: a fall, a photograph, and a blinking red light. He almost doesn’t even notice.

“I can’t, R, I’m busy,” Jehan says, and all of Grantaire’s plans are coming crashing down around his head. He needs a model. He has this idea in his head, and it needs to get out, and onto paper, or canvas, or whatever, but he needs a model.

“But, J, you’d be perfect,” R complains, letting his head thump against the tabletop.

“Of course I would,” Jehan’s smile is sharp but kind. It always is. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m busy.”

“You’re going out with Courf again, aren’t you?”

“So what if I am?”

“I’m in a crisis!”

Jehan huffs out a laugh and runs his hands through R’s hair. Grantaire tries not to cringe. He’s long since given up trying not to touch people, with friends like Les Amis. It was bad enough brushing hands with people at the bar at the pizza place, but even that’s never changed anything. He memorized the names of the 12 colors of the color wheel he got when he was a kid, but he’s never seen one drop of them. He mixes gray and gray to get gray. He buys his whites and blacks in bulk, or sticks to charcoal.

“Honey,” Jehan is saying, “I’ve seen you in a crisis, and this isn’t it.”

Well. That’s fair.

“I still begrudge Courfeyrac for taking you away from me,” R says.

“No, you don’t.”

No, he doesn’t.

“You could always ask Enjolras.”

The shape of the words “absolutely not” are already in Grantaire’s mouth when a voice just behind him asks, “Ask Enjolras what?”

Grantaire looks at Jehan, who smiles beatifically back at him, as if he hadn’t seen Enjolras entering behind him, the bastard. Then he looks at Enjolras.

Enjolras, whose cheeks are a shade darker from the sun outside. Enjolras, who Grantaire has fallen for without seeing a hint of color. Enjolras, who already sees the world in perfect, beautiful technicolor.

The story goes that he saw them all at once, in a bright, blinding burst. Grantaire doesn’t know, he’s never asked. But he trusts Enjolras never to do anything by halves, even this.

“If you’d model for Grantaire’s latest endeavor,” Jehan says, and knife-sharp panic cuts Grantaire away from his reverie, slicing him open. “He needs a reference photo to work with and he’s picky.”

“Oh,” Enjolras says, and there’s a very uncomfortable pause that’s uncomfortable for everyone around, or maybe just for Grantaire. “I could help?”

It sounds more like a question than Grantaire would like. He shrugs. “If you want.”

Enjolras puts his hands in his pockets. “Sure.”

“Tomorrow?” Grantaire asks, surprise bleeding into his voice. “If you’re not busy, at the library?”

Enjolras looks offended, though Grantaire can’t imagine why. “I can make time.”

“Okay,” R says, and that’s how it begins.  


* * *

  
They’re looking for somewhere to take the photo.

“What color is this wall?” Grantaire asks, touching his fingers to the paint of the mural, feeling the texture of it beneath his hand.

“Uh,” Enjolras says, and Grantaire can’t even look at him, can’t take whatever expression might be there on his face. “It’s a lot. It’s red and blue, mostly. There’s some green. A tannish color. It’s…”

“Hard to describe,” Grantaire finishes for him, and turns to keep walking. “I know.”

“I’m sorry,” enjolras says, and jogs to keep up. Someone bumps into Grantaire’s shoulder and he remembers he has to keep his head up while he’s walking. “I didn’t know you couldn’t…”

He clearly doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. Grantaire has mercy on him.

“It’s fine,” he says, “Some people go their whole lives before they meet their soulmate, and some never do. Everyone still manages to have whole, fulfilling lives.”

Enjolras doesn’t need to know he’s reciting words from group therapy. That doesn’t make them any less true.

“Is that why you work in black and white?”

“Yes,” R blinks, surprised. “How diid you know?”

Enjolras looks sheepish. “Jehan showed me some of your work, he says, “so I would know what I was getting into.”

“I see.” Of course Jehan did. Grantaire doesn’t know why he’s surprised, or why it suddenly makes him uncomfortable. It’s like Jehan showed Enjolras a piece of his soul. He’s got to be okay with people seeing his work if he ever wants to do anything with it, but that doesn’t make it any easier. His art always ends up so…personal. He doesn’t know how to make art without pouring a little bit of himself onto the canvas. It’s strange to think Enjolras has seen those pieces of himself.

“It’s good, Grantaire. It’s really good,” Enjolras continues, earnestly. “I’m glad I could help.”

He sounds honest enough. Grantaire decides to believe him, as much as he can. He always does. He always wants to believe Enjolras.

They go on like that for a while, Grantaire asking what colors things are just to pass the time, and to hear Enjolras try to explain it.

“This wall,” Enjolras says, pressing a hand to the brick, “it’s red. Dark red, like a wound in a movie. Red is the color of…fervor.”

“It’s a warm color,” Grantaire supplies, helpfully. Enjolras glances at him and nods.

“Yes. It’s a warm color. It’s like…” He turns around, leaning his back against the wall as he thinks. 

Grantaire backs up and snaps a photo before he can react.

“Hey,” Enjolras says, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I think that’s cheating.” 

“I want it to look natural, not posed. Keep talking, ignore me.”

“It’s…the color of a bad sunburn. The color of the feeling you get when you talk to someone you’re attracted to. It’s the taste of cherries. Fresh, and bursting.”

“Careful,” Grantaire says. “Don’t let Jehan hear you giving him a run for his money.”

Enjolras smiles, looks down. Grantaire takes a step back and steals another photo. Enjolras looks up, and his smile fades into alarm. “Grantaire,” he says, but Grantaire is still trying to frame the shot perfectly. “Grantaire!”

“Hang on.” R says, still peering through his viewfinder. Enjolras takes a few quick steps forward and catches Grantaire’s arm just as he almost steps backwards off the curb and into traffic.

“Careful,” Enjolras says, with enough reproach to make it genuine when R mutters ‘sorry.’ “It’s alright,” Enjolras says, lets him go. “Did you at least get some good ones, almost dying?”

It takes Grantaire a moment to realize he’s teasing. He’s teasing R, and fairy lights light up inside R’s chest, twinkling gently. “Yeah, I think so. Have a look?”  


* * *

  
Grantaire’s cheeks are smile-hurt by the time he gets home, and the hurt doesn’t even fade when he finds Courfeyrac and Jehan on their shared sofa, breathless and slightly disheveled and a few breaths too far apart.

“Really?” He asks, looking at Jehan, but he’s still smiling. “In our living space?”

“We couldn’t make it to the bedroom,” J says, shamelessly. Courfeyrac says nothing but coughs, trying to hide a laugh. Grantaire rolls his eyes at the both of them.

“You’re monsters, both of you,” he says, “But by no means let me stop you.” He goes towards his bedroom.

What a day.

“Don’t be silly,” Jehan says, and stops him in his tracks. “How was your date with Enjolras?”

“Shut up.” Grantaire says cheerfully, and slams the door.

The truth is he shouldn’t be smiling so much. He shouldn’t let himself have this even a little bit, because he can’t keep it. Enjolras already has a soulmate. Grantaire has none.

It’s that simple.

Combeferre helped Enjolras up on the playground when they were seven years old and they’ve been seeing colors ever since. 

He loves Enjolras, or he thinks he does. But it doesn’t matter. 

It’s not like colors would solve all of life’s problems. Jehan’s been seeing in color since he was a teenager, but he doesn’t remember who he touched. He may never know. That’s the worst part.

It happens so slowly, most of the time. Even if you start to see red or blue or green you may never know who caused it.

But Jehan is happy enough.

It helps that Courfeyrac started seeing pinks and greens after the first time they kissed.

Grantaire throws himself into his work, and by the time he goes to bed, he thinks he has the start of something great.  


* * *

  
There’s something blinking in the corner of Grantaire’s vision. He can’t sleep. It won’t stop.

He stares up at the fan above his bed, but it throws its light onto the ceiling, like a splash of paint.

Like a wound in a movie.

Wait.

Grantaire sits up, alarmed. He doesn’t want to look. He can’t bear it. He looks anyway. He can’t help it. The blinking light draws his attention like a moth to a flame.

The taste of cherries. 

Red.

**YELLOW**

The second piece in the series is of a different young man, a self-portrait of the artist. He is looking away, looking distant. Much like the first piece, he is painted in only black and white. The difference is the background—textured shades of red, from wine to cherry, as if the artist smeared it on with his hands. He is drowning in background. He is drowning in red.  


* * *

  
Some people never find their soulmate, and that’s okay. 

Grantaire could live with that.

This seems so much worse.  


* * *

  
He stares at the light on his ceiling until it fills the whole room and suffocates him. 

He doesn’t sleep.  


* * *

  
He stumbles into the kitchen when he smells Jehan putting on coffee, feeling haunted and hunted by the blinking red light. He stares at the mug in Jehan’s hands that once said only “lovely” in gray cursive but now says it in the same color as a bad sunburn.

“That’s red,’ he says, and points.

Jehan looks baffled for a moment before he says, haltingly, “Yes. It is. How did you know?”

R says nothing.

“Oh, honey,” Jehan says, “It happened.”

R nods. “I…bumped into someone on the street yesterday. I didn’t even see them, but that’s the only…I didn’t even see them.”

“R,” Jehan says, but R can’t take his eyes off the Lovely mug as he sets it aside. “It’s going to be okay.”

That makes R look up. 

Jehan’s smile is fleeting soft. “I know. That’s the worst phrase, I know. But it is going to be okay. You know that, don’t you?”

Grantaire shrugs. “I should’ve been paying attention.”

“You didn’t know you’d be walking by your soulmate, did you?”

Jehan is all angles when he hugs Grantaire, but the hug is soft and warm. Grantaire wishes he could melt into it and disappear.

“Come on,” Jehan says, running a soothing hand up and down R’s back. “Let’s go out for brunch. I’ll call Éponine.”  


* * *

  
Éponine and Grantaire met in group therapy. Neither of them can see colors. Well. That used to be the case. Grantaire wonders if the group will even want him anymore, or if they’ll send him to a new group with people he doesn’t know, people like Jehan.

People like Grantaire, now.

Much like Grantaire, though, she’s in love with someone who sees color from someone else’s touch. In love with people they can’t let themselves have. In love with people who don’t even see them.

Red jumps out at Grantaire every way he looks. The bricks, the lights, the boots and umbrellas. It stands out stark against the drab background of everything else. There is so much red, and so many different versions of it. He’s glad it’s raining. It matches his mood. The red doesn’t.

He wonders, vaguely, if it matches his soulmate’s.

“So, you see red now,” Éponine says, without preamble, when she drops into the seat across from him and Jehan. R nods.

She smiles but it’s bitter as coffee. “Well, shall we intuit what that means about your soulmate?”

“No,” Jehan says, at the same time R shrugs and says, “Go for it.”

“What? We all know it’s bullshit,” R continues, when Jehan gives him a look. “Everything about this is bullshit. Soulmates. What’s the point? It isn’t some evolutionary development to make it easier to find a mate or anything, or we wouldn’t be walking around bumping into them on accident. We’d all see colors instantaneously if that were the case, we wouldn’t be stuck wondering why the fuck we see colors now. We would know our soulmates. We’d know how to find them. They wouldn’t be so easy to lose.”

He’d started gaining volume the more he rambled and people were beginning to cut him looks. He glared back at them but hushed. His friends barely heard him finish with “It’s some kind of cosmic joke. So we might as well.”

“Red can be lucky,” Jehan says.

“It can also be a warning,” Éponine says.

“Danger,” R says, “or fervor.”

“Yes. Passion. Pink is a kind of red. It’s the color of love,” J continues, nodding. 

“A lot of good love does me,” R mutters, puts his head in his hands, takes a deep breath.

“Red can also be courage.” That makes R look back up.

“How do you know?” he asks Éponine, with more suspicion in his voice than he should’ve allowed. She shrugs.

“Read it in a book.”

Grantaire blinks and suddenly feels sick. There’s more colors now, and he’s instantly got a headache.

“Jehan,” he says, slowly. “What color is your shirt?”

“Yellow.”

“Fuck.”  


* * *

  
His friends stared at him for a long moment, after that, unsure what to say.

“That was quick,” Jehan says, eventually, once they get Grantaire home, who had nearly refused to open his eyes the whole walk, occasionally pausing to cover his eyes with his hands or to find some corner to retch. People passing him must think he’s drunk, before noon even. He wants to scream, at them, at the world. He wants them to know that this is horrible, that he hates it, that the color yellow makes him nauseous. 

“Do you think you get your colors based on what your soulmate is feeling?” Éponine asks Jehan, idly, from the kitchen. “I heard that once.”

Grantaire lays sprawled out on the couch, an empty trashcan nearby in case he needs to be sick, and he groans at the question. “What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t,” Éponine says, “I’m just wondering why you’re seeing yellow so fast. That is fast, isn’t it, J?”

“Guess I’m just lucky. What would yellow mean my soulmate is feeling?”

“Happy, probably.” 

“Well, fuck them. Fuck them for being happy when they’ve done this to me.”

“R,” Jehan says, so gently his voice sounds like it’s made of cotton.

“What? I don’t know them. I don’t care.”

But it’s clear that’s a lie.  


* * *

  
Later that night, he calls Enjolras. He doesn’t know why.

“Hello? R?”

“What is yellow like?” Grantaire asks. He’s shoved all his paints in his closet, not wanting to look at the colors, hating them. He unplugged the power strip with the blinking red light, turned everything off. He has an ice pack over his eyes to help with the headache, in this cocoon he’s made with as little light as possible, and therefore as little color as possible.

“Yellow is…” He likes how Enjolras doesn’t even hesitate. Grantaire calls him in the middle of the night and asks what yellow is, and Enjolras doesn’t ask why, he just answers. He doesn’t even hesitate. “It’s an optimistic color. It’s like sunlight. Yellow is the feeling you get when you’re about to laugh. You know daffodils?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re yellow.”

“Funny thing, that. They always looked gray to me.”

Grantaire doesn’t feel optimistic about yellow. It makes him feel even sicker to look at it, it’s so bright. Maybe he can learn though. Maybe it will feel like laughter, one day. It sounds like laughter when Enjolras talks about it.

“Why do you ask?”

“I see colors now.” 

A sharp intake of breath. “Do you know who…?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Enjolras says, softly. “What do you see?”

“Do you think it means anything? Éponine asked if it’s based on what your soulmate is feeling.”

“I don’t think so. Not really. But I’m curious.”

“Red. Yellow.” R says, and feels nauseous again just saying the words. “Jehan tells him his hair is called red, but it’s really closer to orange.”

“That makes sense. You mix yellow and red to get orange.”

“I know.” Grantaire sighs. “Artist, remember?”

“Right. Sorry. You know…Combeferre’s doing a study on colorvision—“

“No,” R says. He doesn’t want to hear Enjolras talk about Ferre. He doesn’t think he could bear it. Enjolras starts to speak, but R interrupts. “Is it true that you both saw your colors all at once?”

“Yes.”

The word hands in the air, Grantaire could reach out and grab it, if only opening his eyes didn’t make his head spin so much. 

He doesn’t ask the questions he wants to ask.

Do you love him? Are you in love with him? Is it nice, knowing you belong together? Is it stressful? Is it as bad as not knowing? Do you even remember, not knowing? Do you know that I love you, that I have loved you, that I will love you?

“Will you tell me about orange?” He asks, instead. 

**GREEN**

The next piece in the series is another self-portrait. The artist is painted in shades of green, with a pink backdrop. He is smiling, tentatively, at the viewer, as if he can’t quite believe they’re standing there, looking at him.  


* * *

  
Some people say that prolonged exposure to your soulmate will make the colors appear faster. Some people go around shaking as many hands as possible, touching as many other people as possible and socially acceptable in the hopes that they’ll find their soulmate and find them fast.

Grantaire’s not one of those people. He thinks this, too, is a load of horseshit. Now he’s just go proof.  


* * *

  
The room is still dark when he wakes up, but it is no longer colorless. His curtains are a dark color he doesn’t know the name of, and the light from the sun filters through them, casting color onto the floor. He likes this color, he discovers, even if he doesn’t know what it is.

He pulls up the 12 color wheel on his phone and discovers that it’s called green. Yellow and…something he can’t see. Blue.

He decides he doesn’t mind yellow much much if it makes a color like this.

He tries to think of how he’d describe the color to Éponine if she called him in the nighttime with an ice pack over her eyes.

It’s the color of envy, supposedly. But to Grantaire it feels more like home. It’s a safe color.

It’s still early, Jehan isn’t even up yet. Grantaire rolls out of bed, puts his hands on the curtains, appreciates the realness of the color green. He thinks it’s an honest color.

He throws open the curtains and lets the light in.  


* * *

  
He goes out and buys every art supply he can afford. 

He s tarts with more paints, red, yellow, that one he can’t see. Then he moves to pastels.

Artist, remember? And what artist would resent being able to work in color?

On a whim, he adds a 64 pack of crayons to the basket, so he can memorize every name for every shade and hue.

When he gets home, Jehan sees him with the sacks form the craft store and smiles. 

“Did you buy a box of crayons, too?” he asks.

Of course. He knows what it’s like.  


* * *

  
Grantaire discovers something troubling when he opens his closet to pull the rest of his paints back out.

“Jehan!” 

“What?” Jehan is still in his pajamas. Bright yellow smiley faces on fuzzy white fleece. R supposes he might could see how yellow is a happy color, but he’s going to have to see some daffodils first.

“Please tell me I haven’t been wearing all these colors all together,” he says, and gestures too his closet, “I’m getting a headache just looking at it.”

“Oh,” Jehan says, but a smile is tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Well. Only sometimes. To be fair, you always made it seem like you just didn’t care. You and Éponine, both. I kind of liked it.”

“Of course you do, you dress this way on purpose. God, this is awful. Why weren’t these labelled pink?” He pulls out a pair of jeans. “Why does everyone assume you can seee color instead of the other way around?—Wait. What color are these?” He gestures to the jeans he’s wearing.

“Blue. You’re fine, that’s what they’re meant to be. What good would a label have done you though, if you didn’t know what pink was?”

“I’d have known not to buy them. What color are these?”

Jehan grins cat-like. “Purple!”

“I thought these were black!” This is getting more distressing by the second.

“Nope.” J pops the ‘p’ in the words like chewing gum. “Purple.”

Grantaire huffs, quietly, mostly to himself. “What the fuck is purple?”

“Blue and red.”

“I know that. But I also know I wore these with this shirt, which turns out to be green. Do purple and green go together?”

“If you’re making a statement.”

R throws the shirt at Jehan as he yanks it off the hanger. “You’re no help at all.”

“What, you don’t trust my judgement when it comes to fashion?”

“Not really, no.” 

Jehan clutches a hand to his chest. “I’m wounded,” he says, but he’s laughing.

Grantaire snorts. “You’ll be fine.”  


* * *

  
“Hey,” Grantaire says, when Enjolras answer the phone, and R’s clothes are a small mountain piled high on his bed. “I have kind of a strange favor to ask.”

“Well, you can ask.” He’s teasing again. It makes something like yellow burst in the pit of R’s stomach, and something else more like red. He turns and stares at the curtains until he can breathe evenly again.  


* * *

  
Grantaire doesn’t really know why Enjolras says yes.

It sends Grantaire into a cleaning panic. He shoves all his laundry into a hamper, kicks the rest he can’t fit under his bed, as well as the piece he was working on before this all started. The one he needed Enjolras’s photo for. He doesn’t think he could bear Enjolras seeing that right now. It would be too much. All this color…it’s already too much. He doesn’t need mortification on top of that.

“So…the purple jeans weren’t your style,” Enjolras says, and pulls the dreaded pair out of the pile by a leg, “I wondered.”

“You saw me wearing this and you didn’t know I was colorless?”

“I think the technical term is colorblind,” Enjolras says, mildly. He picks up a shirt with pink flowers on it.

“I really don’t care.”

“Most people see at least some colors, I think. Like Courfeyrac.”

“Most people?”

“Yes. I think they’re too embarrassed to admit they don’t see full color.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone who only saw some color. Courfeyrac’s colors just haven’t come through yet.”

“Or,” Enjolras picks up another shirt, a green one, “the whole system is flawed.” 

“I mean, obviously.” R takes the shirt. Their hands brush. It doesn’t really matter if that happens, now, R supposes. It’s already too late. “I like this one. But if what you’re saying is true, you’d turn half the world on its head.”

“What do you think Combeferre’s colorvision study is for?”

There’s a dangerous sort of glint in Enjolras’s eye. Grantaire doesn’t know what to make of it.

“For turning half the world on its head?”

“Absolutely. The whole idea that you meet your soulmate and everything falls into place…it’s a lie. The media has taught it to us. There isn’t that much truth to it. And it’s harmful to think there is.”

Grantaire has to change the subject, because of course, Enjolras doesn’t know what it’s like to lose your soulmate. That’s easy for him to say. Everything fell into place for him when he was seven years old. He doesn’t know what it’s like to bump into your soulmate on the street and never see them again. “Tell me about green,” he says, instead, and holds the shirt out too Enjolras.

“You know, I have the sneaking suspicion that you already know about green.”

Grantaire occupies himself with a bright orange shirt that hurts his eyes aside from the fact that he’s bombarded with new colors every time he turns around, shoving it into the donate bag. “I want to hear it from you.”

“Well, have you been out today?”

“Yes.”

“Pass a park?”

Yeah. He’d had to stop as he cut through the nearest park, staring at the leaves and the grass and all that green. He finally had a color to match with the smell of mud and wet earth. It was beautiful. There had been no daffodils, though.

Enjolras huffs out a laugh. I’ll take that as a yes, then. It’s an earthy color. Parks are always green. Well. Almost always.”

“The leaves turn orange in the fall you mean.”

“Yes.”

“I looked it up last night. I wanted to see what it looked like. Do these go together?” He picks up a warm hoodie, one of his favorites, and a pair of gray jeans he’s pretty sure are still gray. 

“Yeah, that’s fine. Are you sure you don’t want to keep this one?” Enjolras holds up the flowered shirt, the bright pink blossoms stark against the black of the rest of the fabric. At least, R’s pretty sure it’s black. And pink.

The color of love. Grantaire makes a face. “I don’t think pink is a color for me.”

“Shame,” Enjolras says, putting the shirt in the donate bag and looking at what remains of the rest of the pile. “I thought it rather suited you.” 

Later, before R and Jehan take the bags to the donation box, Grantaire will quietly put the pink flowered shirt back into his closet.  


* * *

  
This time, Enjolras calls Grantaire.

He sounds out of breath, like he’d been running. “Grantaire?”

“Yeah?” R sits upright, alarmed, in bed, where he’d collapsed after going through the whole crayon box and reading every name for every color. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes!” R cringes, and Enjolras continues, quieter. “Yeah, yes, sorry, but I have a theory about your soulmate, if you’ll hear me out.” 

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no. No, I won’t hear you out. I lost my soulmate. I don’t want to hear about it.”

“But, Grantaire—“

“Please don’t,” Grantaire says, and hangs up.  


* * *

  
He receives three texts from Enjolras.

I’m sorry. I overstepped, and I shouldn’t have. You don’t have to talk about your soulmate with me. But I’ve enjoyed talking with you more this week. Let me know if you want to hear about any other colors. E.

Let me tell you more about green. E.

I associate green with you, I think. You wear a lot of it, I'm not sure if you know. It seems to me like an honest color. It does mostly make me think of nature, but it’s also hopeful, I think. Spring has to do with hope, a new start, and all that, because of green. It feels like getting your hopes up. E.

**BLUE**

The subject of the penultimate piece in the series is a blond young man facing away from the viewer. His Jeans are rolled up above the ankles and his arms are spread wide. He is surrounded on all sides by blue. Blue on the sky, blue on the horizon, blue, everywhere.  


* * *

  
The colors sort of…slow down, after that. Grantaire is grateful. It gives him time to adjust to this strange technicolor world he finds himself in, until it’s the few remnants of gray that feel out of place instead of the color smeared across his life like paint.

It also gives him time to think about what Enjolras said…about some people only seeing a few colors. He wonders if it’s true, what people say about prolonged exposure to your soulmate.

Will the world always be in limbo if he doesn’t find them again?

He discovers he really hopes not.  


* * *

  
He distracts himself with his paintings. It helps, to experiment with all these new colors he has, to see what happens when he mixes the gray-blue paint with yellow to make green appear out of nothing. It’s like watching a miracle.  


* * *

  
He mixes red and yellow until he gets the color of Jehan’s hair.

He mixes red and green to get the red of Enjolras’s jacket just right.

Yellow and white to paint daffodils.

Much of it still turns to gray and black when he mixes with blue, but he can make green, and that’s what matters.

He texts Enjolras back can you tell me about blue? and suddenly everything is normal between them again.

And isn’t that something. He and Enjolras, texting. It’s normal.

Sure. E.

Blue is supposed to represent sadness, but it’s also supposed to be relaxing. It’s the color of the sky. It feels like freedom, to me. It’s light. Like the taste of cotton candy. E.

Cotton candy? Really? I thought that was pink. R.

Only sometimes. E.

Grantaire decides he can let himself have this, just a little bit.  


* * *

  
Enjolras grabs his arm at the end of the next meeting, when he’s getting up to leave.

“R. I have an idea.”

“Okay.” Grantaire says, slowly.

“Let me know when you see blue, whenever that is. I want to show you something.”

“What is it?”

Enjolras grins. Grantaire’s heart does gymnastics inside his ribcage. “It’s a surprise.”

It’s like he knew, somehow, that R would be seeing blue by the end of the night.  


* * *

  
Bring your camera. And some snacks. E.  


* * *

  
It takes a while to get wherever it is Enjolras is taking him.

“Are you kidnapping me?” 

“What?” Enjolras looks offended. “No.”

“It kind of feels like you’re kidnapping me.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Grantaire can’t stop looking out the window, up at the blue-bright sky. He’ll never get over it, how it stretches out above them, filled with clouds, blue in every direction.

Blue is an honest color, too. 

“Sorry if this is awkward.” Enjolras says, eventually, after a few minutes of silence.

“What? No. I’m only teasing.” Gratnaire tears his gaze away from the window to look at Enjolras and watch his shoulders slump a little.

“Oh. Okay. Good.” He says, glancing at Grantaire and smiling a little. “I just should’ve thought about how long we’d have to be stuck in a car together without arguing, first.”

Grantaire snorts quietly. “You know, this might be the longest we’ve ever been alone together.”

Enjolras makes another face. “I’m sorry about that. I like you, R. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you better.”

“Oh.” R says, softly, carefully looking out the window again. “That’s alright.”

“It’s not, though. We barely know each other. I don’t think I’ve been a very good friend to you, in the past.”

This is so heartfelt that it’s starting to make Grantaire uncomfortable. “You really don’t have to apologize. It’s fine.”

“Okay. If you say so.”

Grantaire unbuckles for a moment, ignoring Enjolras’s “hey!” and reaching into the backseat for his bag. Carefully, he extricates his camera and starts fiddling with the settings. 

“Whatever I do,” he says, a little irritably, looking again through his viewfinder, “I just can’t seem to do the sky justice.” 

“I don’t think anyone can.” Enjolras says, amusement clear in his voice. “It’s too big. It can’t be contained.”

“How do you walk outside every day and not stop and stare at everything? All of it? There’s just...so much color, everywhere.”

“Well.” Enjolras hums thoughtfully, and when Grantaire turns to look he’s smiling. “You get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it.”

“I know. I don’t think anyone does.” There’s a longer pause. “It’s good to find someone, to talk to. Like you. They’ll remind you how beautiful the world is. How lovely every color you take for granted is.”

“I did that, for you?”

Enjolras gives him a dry look as he makes the next turn. “I’ve been seeing in color since I was seven.”

“And?”

Enjolras shrugs. “You get used to it. Until someone starts asking you to describe every color of the rainbow.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I told you. I’ve loved talking to you more these past few weeks.”

Loved. That’s not the exact word he’d used, but now that he has, Grantaire’s heart won’t stop tripping over it. 

Enjolras checks the GPS on his phone, which he’s kept carefully tilted away from R this whole trip, and breaks into a grin. “We’re almost there!”

“Yay?” Grantaire says, with more of a question mark than an exclamation point.

“Yes, yay, you’re going to love this, I promise.” Enjolras says, and at the next stop reaches for something in the back and throws it at Grantaire before he begins to drive again. “Put this on.”

It’s...a tie?

R holds it up in confusion until it finally dawns on him.

“Over your eyes.” Enjolras says, helpfully.

“You wanna blindfold me? Are you sure you’re not kidnapping me?”

“Just play along!” Enjolras says, in an exasperated tone, but he’s laughing.

“You could at least take me out for dinner first.”

That draws a blush out of Enjolras, pretty and pink. Grantaire can’t help grinning at him. Enjolras throws a hand in the air and says “Oh, shut up.”  


* * *

  
“Okay.” Enjolras says, and stops the car. “I’m going to come around to your side and help you out of the car, then you follow my lead, okay?”

“You mean I still can’t take this off?” Grantaire asks, frowning. After the world of color he’s been living in for these past few weeks, the dark is uncomfortable.

“Nope.”

Enjolras helps him out of the car, but Grantaire still bumps his head on the roof of the car and swears.

“Sorry! Sorry, sorry.”

There’s some stumbling as Enjolras leads the way with both hands on Grantaire’s arm and shoulders, R’s other hand reaching blindly out to make sure he doesn’t bump into anything. “Is this really necessary?”

“Yes.” Enjolras says, shortly. “Oh, shit. You have to take your shoes and socks off.”

“I what?”

“Hang on.”

There are Enjolras’s hands on his ankles, helping him out of his shoes. R puts a hand on Enjolras’s shoulders to help him keep his balance. 

“Okay. Almost there.” There’s a whispering sound nearby that R can’t place, then the feeling of warm sand beneath his feet, and R almost trips.

He understands where he is long before Enjolras takes the makeshift blindfold off.

The world explodes in blue. It takes a moment for R’s eyes to adjust.

That sound he heard was the gentle give and take of the ocean, crashing against the shore. Grantaire stares, openmouthed, at the glorious blue of the sky meeting the dark majesty of the sea.

Enjolras hands him his camera bag, and smiles.  


* * *

  
Grantaire can’t stop taking photos. By the time he starts to get tired of it, he thinks he probably has a full memory card of ocean, ocean, ocean.

Enjolras, meanwhile, has spread out a picnic blanket, weighed down with his bag and their shoes. He lays there with his arms behind his head, his eyes closed, and his shirt riding up a little, showing the skin just above his hips. Grantaire snaps a photo before he can think better of it.

“It’s probably still too cold to get in.” Enjolras says, when he opens up an eye to find R looking at him. “But I thought you might like to see it for yourself this time, instead of googling it.”

“I love it.” Grantaire says. He hasn’t been able to stop smiling, even when the wind whips his hair into his mouth. “It’s...just gorgeous.”

“Come on.” Enjolras says, moving over and patting a spot next to him on the picnic blanket. “Sit down. Just listen to it.”

So Grantaire does, carefully returning his camera to his bag and careful to keep a safe distance between himself and Enjolras. They lie like that for a while, the sun warming their skin and the sand as they listen to the soft crash of the waves.

“Hey.” R says, and it’s only because they’re here, at the edge of the world, that he can ask this question. “Do you think you can fall in love with someone who’s not your soulmate? Real, genuine love? Not just a crush.”

There’s a long silence. Grantaire doesn’t open his eyes to look, merely listens, straining his ears to hear the sound of Enjolras’s answer. 

“Me, personally, or in general?”

“Just, in general.”

Another pause.

“Yes. I think so. I think it happens all the time.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I think you can have more than one soulmate, too.” 

R sits up, finally, propped up on his elbows to look at Enjolras. He can’t see all of the other man’s expression, his eyes obscured by his sunglasses. “What do you mean, like Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta?”  
“No. More like Jehan and Courfeyrac.”

“Like how Jehan is Courfeyrac’s soulmate, but Courf isn’t his?”

“Isn’t he?”

“He...he can’t be, though. J didn’t know Courf when he started seeing color.”

“That’s what I’m saying, I think you can have more than one soulmate.”

Something crumbles inside Grantaire’s chest, something like hope shining through the cracks. He can’t quell it, despite his efforts. As always, he wants to believe what Enjolras is saying. He wants to believe.

He can’t.

There’s nothing between them but the sound of the waves against the shore, and Grantaire stares out at all at that blue and finally says “Dare you to get in the water.”  


* * *

  
By the time they stop to eat, Grantaire’s jeans are soaked almost to the knees and he feels lighter than he has since all this color business began.

“It’s getting late.” He says, checking the time on his phone. “Shouldn’t we go soon?”

“There’s one last thing you need to see.”

The sunset.

Together on the picnic blanket they watch the sky change from blue to green and gold to orange and red and deeper blue, each streak of sunset reflected back on the ever-moving mirror of the water. There are only a few smears of colorless gray left. It takes Grantaire’s breath away. So much color, all at once.

Enjolras is quiet while R frantically changes the settings on his camera and tries to capture it, to hold onto this ephemeral thing for just a little while longer, this whole ephemeral day.

He doesn’t want it to end. But like all things, it must.  


* * *

  
Grantaire dozes in the passenger side of Enjolras’s car, listening to the soft folky tunes Enjolras puts on. It almost puts him to sleep.

But then, Enjolras asks “Have you ever fallen in love? With someone who isn’t your soulmate?” 

Yes. Grantaire thinks. Of course.

“All the time,” he says. “Not like Jehan though.” It’s the most honest he’s possibly ever been.

Enjolras huffs out a laugh. “No, I suppose not.”  
Grantaire’s heart climbs into his throat when he asks, “Have you?”

“Yes.” Enjolras says. “Of course.”

“Really?”

“You know Combeferre and I aren’t together, don’t you?”

“No.”

Enjolras shrugs. “It didn’t work out,” is all he says.

“But...he’s your soulmate.”

“Yes.” Enjolras says. “He is. We are made of the same stuff. I will likely never meet another man who understands me as Combeferre does. But we’re not lovers. We are not in love.”

“But he’s your soulmate.” Grantaire says again, uncomprehendingly. He can’t grasp this thing Enjolras has handed to him. It slips through his fingers like sand. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I think we can have more than one soulmate in our life times. I think people can fall in love with other people, over and over again. I don’t think fate decides who you love or who matters to you. Not really.” 

“But this is the way it’s always been.”

“Is it?” Enjolras demands, a challenge in his voice. “Or is it just what you’ve always been told? One day you’ll meet your soulmate and everything will fall into place. But life’s messier than that, Grantaire, you know that.”

“And how would you know, Enjolras?” R says, hotly, suddenly angry. “You’ve known who your soulmate is since you were seven, you just didn’t want him.”

There’s a tense silence after this, filled by music that doesn’t match the mood.

Enjolras takes a deep breath. “No.” He says, softly. “It was Combeferre who didn’t want me.”  
Grantaire deflates. “Enjolras, I’m sorry—”

“It's fine. It was a long time ago. I’ve made my peace with it.” He glances at Grantaire. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway.”

They’re quiet the rest of the way home, nothing but lullaby voices and twangy guitar between them now.

**VIOLET**

The final piece in the series “Portraits of a Soulmate” is a painting of two hands intertwined, wrapped in green and red ribbon respectively. They are surrounded by flowers: peonies, roses, wisteria, daffodils, forget-me-nots. It gives the impression of being fragile, and delicate, something as fresh and new as a flower.  


* * *

  
Can a person have more than one soulmate?

Does it matter?

One day Grantaire wakes up and there’s no more gray in his life at all, except where it’s supposed to be: in rain clouds, in TV static, the early streaks in his hair.  


* * *

  
He texts Enjolras: I’m sorry for last week. R.

It’s okay, R, really. E.

Grantaire doesn’t really know what else he’s supposed to say, so he says Thanks for taking me to the beach. R.

Any time, Enjolras says, and R really hopes he means it. 

I see purple now. Grantaire says, on a whim. R.

Really? E.

Yeah. I’m glad I got rid of those jeans. R.  


* * *

  
It takes days, weeks even, and Grantaire almost doesn’t even notice. 

One day he wakes up and finds the colors have become commonplace. He no longer looks the sky with wonder, he no longer has to close his eyes for a second when he looks out the window because the color still hurts, he no longer finds himself surprised when he mixes paints.

It’s normal. Nothing like a miracle.

He doesn’t know what to do now that he’s used to it. Purple makes him sad. It feels like he lost something. So he calls Enjolras, even though he doesn’t really know why. He does this a lot lately.

“Does purple feel like an ending to you?” He asks, before Enjolras has the chance to speak, a habit now, one he probably needs to break but can’t seem to bring himself to do.

It always makes Enjolras laugh.

“No. Purple feels like a beginning. Blue and red, passion and light. It makes me think of grape-flavored candies.”

“Candies?”

“Yes. It’s a sweet color.”

Grantaire will never understand where Enjolras get these things. R sees purple and sees only the final piece of his wonder, gone.

“It’s all so…normal, now,” R says.

There’s a thoughtful pause from the other end of the line. Enjolras says, “You have to find something beautiful and new.”

How? He’s seen so many colors. It feels like he’s seen them all once way or another. What could he find that’s new?

“I think I need some more photos,” he says, instead. “Take me somewhere beautiful.”

“Okay,” Enjolras says. R likes how he doesn’t even hesitate.  


* * *

  
“You have all your camera stuff?” Enjolras asks, through the window of his car, when he pulls up to pick R up.

Grantaire puts a hand on his bag, and grins. “Yep. Where are you kidnapping me to this time?”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “Is it kidnapping if you asked me to take you?”

“Depends. Is there a blindfold this time?”

“No.”

“Damn.” R says, just to see Enjolras’s ears turn a bit pink again. 

“You’re incorrigible.” 

“You know it.” Grantaire says, as he drops onto the passenger seat and reaches for the seatbelt. “So where are we off to this time?”

Enjolras’s blush deepens inexplicably. “Don’t laugh.”

Grantaire draws an X over his heart with his index finger. “Wouldn’t dare.”

“The botanic garden?”

“The what?” Grantaire feels a laugh bubbling up in his chest and he slaps a hand over his mouth to contain it, but a helpless giggle escapes between his fingers despite himself. Enjolras doesn’t look at him but smacks him on the arm.

“You said you wouldn’t laugh!”

“I’m not laughing at you!”

“You’re still laughing!” 

“I’m just surprised, that’s all!”

“I like flowers.” Enjolras says, defensively. “Have you got a problem with that?” 

Grantaire falls a little bit more in love with Enjolras every time they speak, not the opposite. It’s awful and amazing all at once. He never expected this, being friends with him. He never expected to like him this much, on top of loving him. It’s starting to hurt, just a little bit.

It still feels like red when they talk, but now it’s a bit like green, too.  


* * *

  
The colors of the gardens remind Grantaire how to be awestruck. It’s like looking at the sunset, brought down to earth, contained in the fragile delicacy of a petal. No wonder Enjolras likes flowers. Grantaire starts to love them, too.

Yellow becomes a happy color as he takes at least 20 pictures of Enjolras laughing, surrounded by daffodils.

Green is as fresh and honest and new as the new leaves.

Blue is as light as the sky, and the weight of Grantaire’s soul.

Purple is as sweet as the air tastes, when Enjolras takes the camera from Grantaire and snaps a photo of him sniffing the petals of something delicate and fragrant.

Red…

Well.

Red is the color of rosebuds, and the gentle way Enjolras touches them, tracing the edges of their petals with a single finger. It makes the leaves of the bush shudder, just like Grantaire.

He could have this, maybe.

“These are my favorite.” Enjolras is saying, when Grantaire remembers that he’s supposed to be listening. “I know how trite that is. Red roses...but there’s a reason they’re so popular.”

Grantaire thinks it’s fitting, that Enjolras would love a flower so beautiful and so sharp at the same time. Soft, but strong, too.

“Red’s your favorite color.”

Enjolras raises his eyebrows in surprise, but smiles. “Yes,” he says, “just like green is yours.” There’s a pause, and then, “They go together.”

Grantaire’s whole chest aches. “Yeah. They’re complementary.”

Enjolras hums, but he’s looking at the flowers when he says, “Much like us.”

It’s Grantaire’s turn to be surprised. “You think we’re complementary? I rather thought we were at odds.” He can’t look away from Enjolras’s face.

The other man’s expression is thoughtful. “I used to think so, too. Not so much anymore.”

“Most people like me less the more they get to know me.”

Enjolras does look up at him, then. “You know that’s not true.”

“Do I?” Grantaire asks, but he has to change the subject. He always has to change the subject. He looks through his camera at the roses. “I wish I had a macro lens.”

Enjolras doesn’t say anything else, so Grantaire lets his camera hang around his neck and starts to turn away, looking for something new to photograph, to capture forever to remember this day and make artwork out of it.

But Enjolras grabs his hand, and every color of the rainbow explodes inside Grantaire, in a bright, blinding burst.

“Grantaire.” He says, and R stares at their joined hands like he can’t believe they exist. “You know that’s not true, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

Grantaire looks up just in time to watch some emotion he can’t name (can’t, won’t, won’t let himself) flicker across Enjolras’s face. “I mean...I like you, R. I liked you even when I thought we didn’t get along. I like you more the more I get to know you. Not the opposite.” He waits. Grantaire stares. “You know that, don’t you?”

Grantaire swallows very carefully. “I did not.”

Enjolras smiles, and everything feels soft at the edges. He squeezes R’s hand lightly before he lets go. “Well. Now you know.”  


* * *

  
They’re sweet-smelling and sun-soaked by the time they climb back into the car.

“Hey,” Enjolras says. “Are you hungry?”  


* * *

  
It’s not until they’re in the parking garage that Grantaire discovers this is all too unbearable.

“I’m sorry,” he says to Enjolras, before he makes a run for it. “I have to go.”

He leaves Enjolras standing there speechless, the car still idling.  


* * *

  
It’s an hour at least before Enjolras knocks on R’s door after that, which kind of surprises Grantaire. Not that he was hoping for Enjolras to follow him, but if he was going to, R would’ve expected it to be spur-of-the-moment, immediate, the way Enjolras usually seems to do things. 

“R. We need to talk,” he says, when Grantaire opens the door.

“Okay,” Grantaire says, and stands aside to let him in.

“We need to talk,” Enjolras says again, and takes a deep breath as if steeling himself for something, but stops short when he sees the painting.

Oh.

It’s the one, the first one, from that day they went out taking photos, the one where Enjolras looks like an angel. R had been showing Jehan his work the night before, and he’d left the canvases stacked against the wall.

“Is that…me?”

R laughs. He can’t help it. “Yeah. Does it not look like you?”

“Now how I see me,” Enjolras says, but he doesn’t leave Grantaire room to wonder about that, because then he asks, “Is that how you see me?”

“I…” R begins, falters. “It…used to be.”

Enjolras simply looks at him, and Grantaire realizes he’s going to have to explain himself now.

He closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. When he begins, he doesn’t even open his eyes. “I’ve loved you for a long time. I thought it was…just puppy love, or I don’t know—I was in love with the idea of you…and I know that’s wrong, which is why I thought it didn’t mean anything. But getting to know you has been…” He doesn’t look at Enjolras when he opens his eyes, instead turning to his canvases. He pulls out the one from the beach. “I see you like this now. More real. And I’m still in love with you. Soulmate or not.”

When he finishes this little spiel, he risks a glance at Enjolras. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but a smile isn’t it.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says and he sounds happier than R has never heard him sound, “I think you’re my soulmate.”

“That’s not—“

“I don’t care. I don’t care if it’s not possible. I love you, too, R. I have loved you. Fate be damned. For what it’s worth, I really do think you’re my soulmate—I called to tell you that time—but I understand why you don’t. And again, I don’t care. I know what you’re thinking now.” 

Grantaire doesn’t know how that could possibly be true.

“You’re thinking you can’t let yourself have this.”

Okay. Maybe he’s wrong.

“But why not? We’re not committing to forever here. So what if we’re not meant to be together? Why can’t we give it a go? See where it takes us?” He grins. “I’m going to kiss you now. Fair warning.”

Enjolras’s hands are warm on R’s face and when they pull apart, they’re both smiling.

“Well,” Grantaire says, breathless, “you make some good points.”

Jehan laughs, which startles both Grantaire and Enjolras, making them jump. He’s standing in the kitchen with that mug in his hands, and Grantaire doesn’t know how long he’s been there. “God, finally. I thought you two were never going to figure it out.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr [here](gopuckurself.tumblr.com)
> 
> thanks for reading!


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